There are several fields where it is desirable to have a means for sensing relative velocity between a pair of objects or the equivalent and for actuating some appropriate actuable means upon such relative velocity reaching or exceeding a preselected value. Examples of the foregoing are automotive safety apparatus, e.g., seat belts, industrial machine safety apparatus, construction machine safety apparatus and military applications. A specific example of the latter is a submunition adapted to be ejected from a canister tube together with a plurality of other similar submunitions, all of which are connected by a lanyard and a web strap to the canister tube, the arrangement being such that upon the submunitions being ejected a certain distance away from the canister tube then through the tethering action from the webbing and the lanyards the lanyard will jerk or unlock a detonation sequence initiation means so as to arm the submunition rendering it then susceptible to detonation upon the occurrence of some further event, e.g., the approach of personnel and/or vehicles. An example of the preceding arrangement for dispensing submunitions is disclosed in my copending patent application, Ser. No. 394,086, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,466,322, Filed July 1, 1982 and entitled "DISPERSING MINE DISPENSER".
One safety hazard associated with a canister tube loaded with submunitions, as aforesaid, is that the entire canister could accidentally be tipped upside-down so that the submunitions contained therein would dump out. This type of accident, and other types of unintentional events, could result in the lanyards connected to each of the submunitions being jerked so as to unlock the detonation sequence initiation means connected thereto.